The purpose of the African Women in Cinema Blog is to provide a space to discuss diverse topics relating to African women in cinema--filmmakers, actors, producers, and all film professionals. The blog is a public forum of the Centre for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema.

Two strong films of a social nature inscribed in the period of the time, La Permanance, 2016 and Vers la Tendresse, 2015 (Towards Tenderness) by Alice Diop collect awards.

The film La Permanence received the French Institute Marcorelles Award at the Cinema du Réel Festival, while Vers la Tendresse was accorded the INA Award for the best French-language short film as well as the Audience Award for Best French Short Film at the Women's Film Festival at Creteil.

"During a workshop on the theme of love, I met four young men all from Seine Saint-Denis. From their voices I wanted to make a film." Introducing the short film About Tenderness, these words from Alice Diop reveal the testimony of four young Parisians concerning their attitudes towards tenderness.

Regis, Rachid, Patrick and Anis are neither siblings nor a gang from Seine Saint-Denis. They do not know each but each maintains a particular connection with love.

"White people are the ones who know love; because their parents have shown them. Among blacks and Arabs, it's hot." If affection manifested itself other than by words and gestures in Regis’s family, the only tenderness Rachid acknowledges having known is that of his mother. "I do not have a sister, I do not know what a woman is," he confides.

For Patrick, once feelings are shown it is the contrary of tenderness that he will endure because of his sexual orientation. The male universe is coded, one cannot say everything, one cannot do everything or even less be what one wants. There are codes that can also manifest themselves by the violence of silence: one does not talk about love between buddies. We talk about girls but not about love, affirm Regis and Rachid. Everything that is associated with it is poorly received. Such as love songs for example. Hence, Anis, passionate about music, hides from his companions in order to listen to Marvin Gaye...

Four mini-stories of unsettling transparency, conveyed by voices captured in an intimate setting, and of a subject that is far too little heard about…

Consultations in Seine-Saint-Denis

The continuous access to health care at Avicenne Hospital, called the PASS is the only one of its kind that offers consultations without appointment for migrants arriving in Seine-Saint-Denis (over a million and a half inhabitants). Slipping into Doctor Geeraert’s office, the director films patients who have arrived some time ago from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and Guinea. Mostly men seeking asylum, their wives and children remaining in their country of origin.

Trauma, anxiety, burns, depression are the most recurrent suffering observed by the doctor who examines a dozen patients a day. Some live in a post-trauma state after enduring beatings and torture by the military in countries at war. Confronted with this psychological suffering, the doctor and his psychiatrist can only prescribe antidepressants, which in and of itself is an indicative manifestation of their powerlessness.